The Shadow Campaign: The AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce

The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That “Saved the 2020 Election”: Where Are They Now?
The Stars of the Roster | The AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce
Norm Eisen and the Voter Protection Program | Voter Participation Center

The AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce                                                                                  

Ms. Ball’s 2021 article also places a lot of emphasis of an unlikely joint statement by the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, joined by the National Association of Evangelicals and the National African American Clergy Network, which called for the public to be patient, understand that it would take time to count ballots, and trust in the results. With COVID-19 well in the rearview, and the issue of election integrity far more polarized, it is unlikely that such a statement will be issued again.

An update on the activities of the AFL-CIO is hardly needed. The labor union, as it was in 2020, is spending enormous sums of money backing Biden/Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party. The union is now led by Liz Schuler instead of Richard Trumka, who died in August 2021, and Michael Podhorzer has left, but aside from that the union remains much the same as it did in 2020. The union has already unanimously endorsed Harris and will no doubt be spending millions of dollars backing her in 2024.

The Chamber of Commerce, meanwhile, has charted a fraught path toward the center-left since 2020. Shortly after the 2020 election Thomas Donohue, the CEO who signed the statement with the AFL-CIO, stepped down from his post to be replaced by Suzanne Clark, who was reportedly a close ally. Donohue and Clark’s leadership was castigated by many including the Chamber’s longtime political strategist who departed the organization saying that it was moving rapidly toward the Left. The Chamber, for its part, claimed Reed was fired for cause, but the leftward shift was proved and later regretted when the Chamber endorsed 15 Democrats in 2020 who later voted for a bill the Chamber called “un-American.” An anonymous Republican operative reportedly told the Washington Post that, after 2020 and the Chamber’s subsequent debacles, “the Chamber doesn’t have the capability of changing a single vote in Congress.”

On the specific issue of election integrity, the Chamber again came to regret its shift to the Left when its one-time olive branch was rejected over the Chamber’s opposition to H.R.1 in 2021, which would have wreaked havoc on America’s campaign finance laws and election policies. Immediately, a campaign was launched by a left-wing watchdog group pressuring companies to withdraw from the Chamber unless it changed its stance. Unable to find reliable allies on either side, the Chamber of Commerce may be looking for a change of strategy in 2024. There are few indications of what the group might do this election cycle, with the only real statement being a generic acknowledgement of Biden’s withdrawal.

Protect Democracy and Ian Bassin

Featured seven times in the Time article, the Protect Democracy (or the Protect Democracy Project) was a major player in the 2020 “shadow campaign.” Protect Democracy is credited in the article with assembling “a bipartisan election-crisis task force” that published reports and held media briefings to douse the public in “widespread coverage of potential election issues and fact-checking of Trump’s false claims.” One of its key contributions was tracking and lowering the public’s expectations of the election night counting, eventually conducting a poll showing that 70 percent of voters did not expect to know the winner on election night and that the majority of them did not view that as a problem. Protect Democracy CEO Ian Bassin was also quoted several times—and was one of the more ominous commentators—saying that it was “important for the country to understand that [the 2020 election] didn’t happen accidentally. The system didn’t work magically. Democracy is not self-executing.” Today, Bassin and Protect Democracy are doing everything in their power to prevent a second Trump administration.

In December 2023, shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump could not appear on the Colorado presidential ballot due to an erroneous interpretation of the 14th Amendment, Bassin published a 2,700 word blog post on the Protect Democracy website supporting the decision and calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold it, saying, “the Court upholding the Colorado Supreme Court decision, even in the face of extreme political pressure to do otherwise, would be the greatest vindication of the American Constitutional system and the founders’ invention.” Protect Democracy, meanwhile, signed an amicus brief supporting neither side but stating the Colorado Supreme Court was acting within its authority and that the Supreme Court should never have taken the case. The Supreme Court unanimously disagreed in a 9-0 decision. For excellent legal scholarship like this and other election-related activities, Bassin received a $800,000 MacArthur genius grant in 2023 while Protect Democracy and its related 501(c)(4), United to Protect Democracy, saw its revenue increase to a combined $46.2 million in 2022, the most recent year of disclosures available.

In preparation for 2024, Protect Democracy is doing almost exactly the same work it did in 2019 and 2020. Protect Democracy recently published a 2024 Faith in Elections playbook that advises activist groups on the best ways for faith-based nonprofits to “protect the 2024 election.” Possible methods include recruiting poll workers, running get-out-the-vote drives, and holding seminars to combat disinformation and polarization. Protect Democracy has also kept the 2020 “bipartisan election-crisis task force” going, now calling it the National Task Force on Election Crises. The task force has already published a series of cookie-cutter “Explainers” meant to assuage concerns about election integrity in 2024 for South Carolina, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia. The task force’s members still include numerous people mentioned in the original Time article, along with many new names. It has the potential to be a powerful force for “fortification” as the 2024 election approaches.

In the next installment, Norm Eisen joins CNN as a legal commentator, offering opinions critical of Donald Trump in his various legal proceedings.